Tag Archive

Latoya and Jalesa, both 26, grew up on the west side of Chicago, attending Calhoun Public School during the day and stepping across the street to Marillac Social Center for after-school programs. They lived in a tough neighborhood. Latoya said the summer gunshots came as often as the sound of ice-cream truck bells in the suburbs. But everyone knew each …

Protests Over Police Killing in Chicago Met with Platitudes
Want Justice? Hold On to Your Cash This Holiday Season!
A police cruiser’s dashcam videotape that showed the brutal killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by former Chicago Police Department cop Jason Van Dyke on Oct. 20 last year touched off a new round of protest yesterday after its court-ordered release. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy were quick to call for calm and order, but local activists are demanding accountability and long-overdue justice in the case.
Leid Stories proposes a way that everyone can contribute to the cause of justice in our society: Hold on to your cash this holiday season.

America’s is a sickness of the mind, the unwavering belief by people in power that free-market capitalism will somehow work for everyone. As with a virus that refuses to die, the effects are insidious, because the very rich have convinced themselves that they made it on their own, and that others have only themselves to blame if they are poor. …

Yves here. This post by Ed Walker provides a detailed description of how badly municipalities have been fleeced when they bought interest rate swaps from Wall Street as part of financings. It isn’t simply that these borrowers were exploited, but that the degree of pilfering was so extreme that the financiers clearly knew they were dealing with rubes and took …

hicago’s mayoral election may look like a local event, and the media mostly cover it as a local event, but the presence of a large, diverse, and energized opposition demanding change on basic issues of fairness and justice gives the city’s local result a potentially important, totemic meaning for the country. The outcome of the April 7 runoff election, which includes 40% …